


it isn't nothing

by anneblythes



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Green Gables Fables
Genre: F/M, Post-Finale, anne is bi, just talking about their feelings, they are cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9431453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneblythes/pseuds/anneblythes
Summary: Anne and Gilbert have never really been alone together, without the threat of Marilla or a roommate. Anne is worried about something.





	

“Where is everyone?” asked Gilbert, following Anne up the stairs. They had just spent an afternoon at the park, running around smelling the flowers and causing mayhem. Now they were exhausted, and she’d insisted on bringing him to Patty’s Place, the little house she was renting with some of the girls. “What’ve you done with them, Anne-girl?”

Anne pulled him into her room, surprisingly strong. Well, maybe not-so-surprisingly- that locker board had hit quite hard.

“Phil’s on a hot date with Blake, Priscilla went to see Fantastic Beasts, Stella’s studying, and we’re here. Convenient, right?”

She plopped down on the bed with a little bounce. “None of us are moved in at all, as you can see. I haven’t spent much time in this room, but it’s beautiful, isn’t it? Look at the way the light comes through the window. It’s not Green Gables, but it’s no Bagne of Toulon, either. Phil said she’d-“

“Hey,” he said gently, coming to sit beside her. “I know. It’s nice, really nice. Kijiji never fails.”

Gil knew that there were different kinds of Anne-rambles, and had gotten good at judging which was which. When she was nervous, her voice became breathy, girlish, unsteady. She jumped from thought to thought with no connection, and was sure to mention Green Gables- especially if she was away from it. He had noticed this rambling throughout the afternoon, more of it as the hours passed. He wondered why.

She quieted, and he put his arm around her. Anne’s room at Green Gables was small, but they’d never been in it alone together. At first, she would have rather done anything than invite him over, of course. Then, even when they were friends, there was Marilla to contend with. Boys didn’t set foot on the second floor of the house solo, not if they wanted to leave alive. It was group gatherings or nothing.

So he hadn’t been there often. There were a few times the whole gang had been over and crowded around her computer, watching stupid Vine compilations or bootleg musicals and gorging on Mrs. Lynde’s cookies. Then he’d sat close to her, sure, but everyone else had, too. They’d never been alone, without threat of interruption. They’d never been intimate. In the dorm room, in the first month of their relationship, they’d done some things, but they were always aware of the door, the hallway, of Phil or others popping in any minute.

This room had a double bed and a locking door. The white shag carpet, left behind by some previous tenant, would muffle anything that might be heard downstairs. It was a tiny place, too. Her unpacked boxes might have made it seem smaller, but he could tell that without them, it wouldn’t be much bigger at all. This room was close. Two people sitting on a bed in this room would soon be sitting closer, and soon after that, not be sitting at all.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he murmured. “You okay?”

Anne bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

She squeezed his hand twice, and he repeated the pattern. That was a game they had, whenever one of them needed it. “I mean, I do know. What I don’t know is how to talk about it.”

“Anne Shirley doesn’t know how to talk about something?”

“Shut up. It’s nothing.”

“It sounds like it isn’t nothing.”

She squeezed his hand again, staring down at it like what she wanted to say was written there. 

“Okay, so I just used a double negative, and you didn’t even correct me? It’s definitely not nothing.”

Three more squeezes. Three more back.

“You can tell me, Anne-girl, really. Nothing you can say will scare me, or offend me, or make me leave you. I care too much about you to not stick with you, whatever you do. I just want-“

“Do you want to have sex with me?” she interrupted.

“Anne! Of cou- if you want to. If you’re ready for it, I mean- do you want to have sex with me? Because I think… I think I would… I think I’d really like that. If you’d like it. If it’s-“

“Even if I’m not a virgin?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Anne,” he said, and drew her to his chest. She was crying now, and he let her do it without trying to make a joke, or cheer her up. They stayed that way for several minutes, him stroking her hair, until he tenderly pulled her up.

“I don’t know why I’d expect that of you,” he said, “Not after all the Tinder hookups I’ve had.”

She giggled, wiping her eyes. “Really?”

“Sure. Hell, I went to a girl’s apartment the night you rejected me. I- it’s stupid, but I always had to feel wanted. Wanted by girls. Wanted by one girl, actually- that’s you- but when that one girl didn’t want me, I had to show myself that other girls would. I’m a slut, Anne, okay? A slut for validation. Whoever you’ve had sex with, it’s probably been for healthier reasons than mine.”

“Three people,” she said, and he smiled.

“Fifteen. That’s what low self-esteem will do to you.”

“How do you have sex with fifteen people?!” 

“In a room a lot bigger than this one,” he replied. “No, honestly, I don’t really know. I lost my virginity to Ruby, though.”

There was a silence between them.

“After that, at Queens? Christine wanted to take things really fast. Otherwise, there were Tinder girls, girls at parties, girls who were just there. I made bad decisions. Some people sleep around and it’s no problem, but it took a toll on me.”

“I never had sex with a girl from Tinder,” she told him, and he laughed. “Just girls from Avonlea.”

“Wait- really? That’s- wow. I had no idea. Um…”

She sighed. “Yes, it was Diana, and yes, we pretended to be different literary men. We were each other’s firsts. Gosh, I’ve never told anyone- and then this girl Kathy, at the church teen girls’ retreat. She was from Regina. We snuck out to one of the fancy rental cabins, and- Gilbert!”

“What?” he asked, covering his crotch with one of her stuffed animals. “I don’t have a boner from listening to you describe your lesbian affairs. No one here has a boner.”

She looked at him.

“But, um, just in case, tell me something really unsexy. Just because! No reason.”

“Roy was my third person.”

Gil winced. “Ooh.”

“Don’t worry. He was… He was just how you’d expect.”

“Good,” he said, pulling her back into his arms. She giggled.

“It’s still there!”

“It is. What are you going to do about it?”

*


End file.
